This Is The Last Time (I'm Asking You This)
by EmilyFuckingFitch
Summary: Root finds herself standing in front of a familiar apartment door after she leaves the subway station. Set after 4x18.


"Harold tried to kill himself today, Sameen."

Root sets her keys down on the dusty countertop. They're an extra set that she'd made for herself after she'd joined Finch and the others in saving relevant and irrelevant numbers—Shaw never knew that she had them, though. The keys would've lost their purpose had Shaw found out and inevitably change all the locks. But, they lost their usefulness anyway. After Shaw's cover was blown and she was relocated to the subway station, Root didn't think they'd see the light of day again. She never thought that she'd be coming back here again.

But yet, here she is, in Shaw's apartment. She'd wandered around the streets of New York aimlessly for hours after Finch had told her to leave. Somehow, she found herself standing in front of a familiar apartment door, pulling out a set of keys she'd kept in her pocket since that day at the stock exchange; somehow, she found herself opening the lock and walking inside.

Somehow, she found herself here.

Root takes out a napkin from her coat pocket, runs it across the marble to wipe off the film of dust that's settled from the past three months of vacancy. She scrunches her nose in disgust as the napkin becomes coated with a thick shade of black and grey.

"He drank the entire bottle of neurotoxin," Root says, shaking her head, recalling the audacity of Finch's action. "The _entire bottle_, Sam." She walks over to the empty trashcan on her left, drops the dirty napkin in it.

"He was trying to prove a point to me," Root sighs as she heads to Shaw's bedroom. She tries to turn on the lights with the switch, but of course, it doesn't work. The power's been out of the apartment for months. Still, Root enters the room anyway, careful not to step on Shaw's clothes littered all over the floor. The only source of light comes from the windows, the street lamps illuminating through. She doesn't particularly mind it, though, the lack of light.

She's been walking alone in the dark for months now.

"He didn't want me to kill his new friend Beth," Root explains, walking over to the drawer, crouching down. She opens the top drawer, only to find empty. She closes it, opens the bottom drawer. Again, empty.

Root frowns to herself, though she's not sure why. She's looking for something, but she doesn't exactly know what. Maybe something of Shaw's. Something tangible. Something familiar.

"I know what you're thinking," Root says with a roll of the eyes, and stands up, continuing her search. "But I wasn't going to kill her unnecessarily." She walks over to the nightstand. "I've changed."

She crouches down again, looking at it from all sides to find a compartment where Shaw could've stored her things in. But to her chagrin, there are no notches—it's all solid wood. She tries the underside of the nightstand instead.

"What else was I supposed to do?" Root whispers into the darkness of the room, running her hands against the bottom of the nightstand, to feel for a small, hidden handle that might be there. "She was going to get Harold killed, and I—" She tsks, shaking her head. "I just couldn't have that."

Then she hears it. A click.

She smiles to herself. The fact that it doesn't reach her eyes has long become unimportant to her.

"Don't worry, Sam," Root assures, pulling the handle towards herself with the tips of her fingers. The nightstand creeks from the lack of use, and in the silence of the apartment, it echoes loudly against the peeling paint of the walls, vibrating in her ears.

Still, it's not quite as loud as the thoughts that run rampantly inside her head, shrill and roaring.

"I got him to the hospital in time," Root says, just as the wooden board releases from the bottom of the nightstand. It falls, clanking unceremoniously to the floor.

And then she sees it, a white polaroid picture taped onto the board, faced down.

With shaky hands, she starts removing the film of tape from it. It doesn't peel off cleanly—Shaw must've placed it here months ago. She doesn't know what she's hoping for—she scolds herself for hoping at all. She's learned long ago that hoping only makes the hollowness in her chest grow, but she's anxious nonetheless.

"He's alive and breathing," Root promised through clenched teeth, annoyed that the tape's leaving a sticky residue on her fingers, but she continues to peel it off anyway. "He didn't seem very happy about it."

After a few moments, all the tape is removed, freeing the polaroid from the board. She flips it over, not really knowing what she's expecting.

Root immediately recognizes the picture, and her eyes soften. It's a polaroid of them, the night when they decoded the instructions for decontamination. She smiles warmly at it, recalling that day. She wasn't much of a help to Shaw—chemistry was never her strong suit, but Shaw didn't seem to mind that or her presence. At least, not until Root started taking pictures of Shaw out of boredom, even sneaking in a picture of them together. In the height of her irritation, Shaw had snatched it out of Root's hands—the pictures along with it—scolding her for making her task harder to complete than it already was.

Root didn't think Shaw kept them, let alone this picture.

She sits down on the floor, her back against the bedframe. She stares at the picture, holds the polaroid in fondness for the memory it brings, in affection for the fact that Shaw had kept it, out of all things—

she holds the picture in mourning, for a time that she may never have again, and she clutches the picture even tighter.

"Harold blames himself for what happened that day, Sameen," Root admits quietly. She doesn't know why she's saying this, why now, why _here_. There's no one in this room except her. She doesn't know who she's expecting to listen.

But this heaviness, this guilt, this regret, this anger and frustration has been filling her chest and suffocating her lungs for so long that she can hardly breathe most days. Her god won't listen to her prayers and she's been pleading on her knees since the day she lost Shaw and—

she feels the words bubble out of her before she can stop them.

"He shouldn't blame himself. It wasn't his fault." She feels the bottom of her lip begin to quiver, and she purses her lips to get them to stop.

"It was mine," Root confesses, not for the first time today. It doesn't make the words any less harder to swallow, though, nor does it make the words taste any less bitter, or make them any less true.

"It was my fault. If I hadn't asked for your help that day, if I hadn't let you push that override button—"

She pauses, wiping away the tears that are falling down onto her cheeks. She looks up at the ceiling as she tries to calm down her breathing, to stop the sobs threatening to quake her body. This is not a confessional. This is not where she can seek salvation. This is not where she can atone for her sins, because there is nothing she can do to atone for them. These are the burdens of her mistakes, these are consequences of her choices.

This is the weight she must bear.

"If I had been the one to push the override button," Root starts again. "You'd still be here."

Root looks down at the polaroid in her hands again, though her vision is blurry from the wetness in her eyes. She strokes her fingers tenderly at Shaw's face in the picture.

"You'd still be _here_."

It's then that she realizes why she'd come here. She was looking for something that reminded her of Shaw. Root shakes her head, lets out a small laugh in disbelief. Shaw is at every corner she turns, she is in everything Root sees. She's in her bloodstream and in her veins and in every inch of her thoughts. Shaw is something that she can never outrun, and something that she will never be able to outrun.

Because outrunning Shaw would mean forgetting her, and Root will never let herself forget her.

"I miss you, Sameen," Root whispers, her voice shaky. She takes in a deep breath, and exhales.

"I'm sorry."

Root takes out her phone and dials a familiar number—the same number she's been calling since the day she'd lost Shaw, hopelessly wishing that she would one day pick up.

After a few rings, a woman answers. It's someone that Root expects, but it's not the voice she wants to hear.

Root hangs up.

Nothing has changed. They are still fighting a losing war against Samaritan. Shaw is still missing. The Machine is growing more desperate and vengeful with each passing day.

Root stands up, crawls onto the bed. She lies down and stares at the ceiling.

She can't remember why she wants to fight this war anymore.

/

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End file.
